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On Working Remotely

Two years ago, after 20 years of working in an office, I started working remotely for Salesforce.org. I’ll be honest — I was kind of anxious about it. I’m an extroverted-enough introvert that I actually like being around people and talking to them. I was worried that I’d feel deprived of human contact. Have trouble being focused and effective. Or slowly go insane. Oh, how happily wrong I was.

For starters, cutting my commute down to 25 paces (yes, I’ve counted) has meant I get 90 minutes a day of my life back. I get to sleep later, have an extra cup of tea, see Everett off to school and still start work at 8am sharp. 7:30am meeting with people on the east coast? No big deal. Home in time to make dinner, hang with the kids? Check.

I still talk to people most of the day anyway — only instead of face-to-face, it’s mostly shouting into my computer. But even if I was in the office, most of the team would be remote, so I’d still spend most of my day in video conferences. With fiber to the home, a big monitor, an HD webcam and a desktop speaker/mic, living in the future is really not so bad. Plus, I have a bunch of close colleagues who also happen to be here in Seattle, and so I have facetime when I need it as well.